


Gun in My Hand

by BuckyBarnes8999



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Anal Sex, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Canonical Character Death, Death, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Oral Sex, Plotty, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckyBarnes8999/pseuds/BuckyBarnes8999
Summary: Steve Rogers is just a poor dirt farmer until a stranger darkens his doorstep. His life is about to change forever.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 24





	Gun in My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This contains realistic depictions of death. In the future will contain more graphic depictions of death. 
> 
> This is gonna be a long one friends, so stick with me.  
> Each chapter is going to be named after a song and will have a link to that song.
> 
> Chapter one: [The Devil's backbone](https://youtu.be/YTb6MoMLvcY)
> 
> Also follow me on Tumblr!: [ here](https://ibuckybarnes.tumblr.com/)

**July 5th, 1866**

There was a dead horse in front of his house.  
It was unsaddled but it had shoes, a dried froth was on it's mouth, flecking back along it's neck. It had been ridden hard and had died right there in front of his house. Blood had leaked from a wound on it's flank, black in the morning sun. Flies were already gathered, clumped up around the beast's glassy dead eyes and the bullet wound.  
Steve wondered if whoever owned the horse had knocked on the front door. If it were some desperate traveller beset by brigands in the desert. 

He didn't often sleep in the house these days. His ma was sick and it was cowardly of him to distance himself but he was frail as it was. Born too soon and on the trail. His ma understood.  
Last night he had slept under the stars by the little family plot where a few rough cut tombstones were grouped together. Some of the graves didn't have bodies in them. Some of them were just reminders of what was lost and some were left an ocean away. Steve's daddy was one of those empty graves-- and coincidentally the grave Steve slept on.  
Steve had been so little when he'd died he didn't even remember the man. Sure he had little inklings, flashes of a big, strong man with arms that could choke a mule. . . A scent of tobacco. But that's all.  
He was lost on the final move west. Lost, that was an easy term, an easy way to say he died when defending the young black family that tried joining the wagon train. Nobody had meant it, apparently, nobody knew he'd hit his head and die of it when he fell from the horse.  
The family had always been on the trail, since the beginning, his pa and ma going from settlement to boom town working jobs, saving. It all changed when Steve was born. It made sense to try and settle down and raise a boy the right way. The good way. No, they didn't want to raise another roughneck to tear up the trails on the road to hell. That was if he survived his infancy.

Steve shook his head and cleared his thoughts. That happened almost seventeen years ago. Steve was a man now, man of the house. Luckily for them Joseph Rogers had paid ahead and had sense enough to have papers drawn up. Nobody could dispute em. Nobody could run them off the land they owned. Hell, even the local Indians were fine with them.  
They weren't like the big ranches or production farms. They were quiet and they gave their extra away. 

Many thick, handwoven blankets traded hands for their produce or meat. They had stacks of them but the local chief wouldn't let them go empty handed for their goods. It was honor and Steve respected it. The US government wasn't treating those folk right, he knew that much. He knew they starved and froze and were killed just for living. That didn't sit right with Steve. Who on God's green earth had any right to kill folks like that? Who made up what was and was not a person's rightful land or where a person belonged? Who made up borders of states and countries and reservations? Whoever did it should be shot. Nobody asked to be brought into this world And it seemed to Steve that too many people wanted to make livin' too hard on folks. Nobody had the right and Steve would fight over that.

He might not read a newspaper until it managed finding its way out to the ranch, months old and tattered from whatever trail rider's saddlebag, but he knew injustice. Saw a lot of it first hand. It was how his ma had gotten reputation as something of a frontier doctor-- patching up Indians and drifters, the downtrodden, sheltering black folk, acting as midwife for wayward women---The ones the cruel men of the world were cruelest to.  
Some of those plots in the family cemetery belonged to poor women and babies and they were family in the end, weren't they? With Sarah Rogers' hands on them intimately, with their trust placed in her in the most vulnerable of ways. Those useless unmarriageable fallen women? Those words didn't mean shit to Sarah Rogers. When she finally goes to cross that crystal sea the world will be left a lesser place than it was. 

Steve paces around the horse now, poor animal was really run ragged, fat though. Like it'd been kept as a pleasure more than a vehicle-- probably what killed it, hard ride after a soft life-- that is if the bullet didn't do its job. There sure was enough blood. 

Sighing deeply Steve went to get the old ox out of the barn. He needed to drag the carcass off before it became a mess, drag it at least to the property line. He didn't have the strength to bury it. Damn his frailty.  
Damn his weak lungs and damn his crooked spine. 

There weren't many outbuildings on their little patch of dirt, just the house, outhouse, barn and a tiny workshop that doubled as a room for hired help--when there was hired help.

The yoke for the ox was hung on the wall of that little building. Steve managed taking it down without trouble and managed dragging the big piece of wood and iron to the barn. 

It gave him pause that the barn door was slightly ajar. Slowly, he eased it open, cutting a slice of early morning light into the darkness within. What immediately met him was the smell of hay and manure, the old greying horse snuffled impatiently in the corner stall. The old ox was in the paddock out the side door.  
Steve made his way toward it, hefting the yoke onto his shoulder. 

A groan cut through the air and Steve, startled, dropped the yoke onto his foot. "Shit!" He cursed, torn between investigating the sound and seeing to his foot. Damn his worn out boots. 

"Shit," he repeats then calls out; "Who's there?" As he peers into the shadowy back of the barn. There was a bit of movement amongst the hay.  
Steve wished now he had his shotgun. The pitchfork was handy at least.  
He sidestepped the yoke and grabbed the pitchfork from where it leaned against one of the support beams. "I said who's there?" He called out again, inching forward, brandishing the tool. 

Another groan greets him. It sounds weak this time, pained. Steve lowers this pitchfork and steps around the pile of hay the sound is coming from. 

He is face to face with a wounded man in the strangest clothes he'd ever seen. The hat though, it's a familiar, Sargeant's hat. The color is wrong, a greenish hue as opposed to the blue he's seen before. 

The man's wearing a double breasted coat with a cowl, almost an imitation of an officers coat except the material, a deep black leather. The left arm of the coat is pinned up at the elbow, empty from the elbow down. 

As Steve stares, the man murmurs something under his breath repeatedly. No matter how hard Steve strained to hear he couldn't quite make out the words.  
He thinks he hears a name and a state but he can't be sure. 

As he watches, the man coughs and it stains his lips red. Steve jumps back but keeps staring. Now more concerned with the man's health than his strange attire. That's when he notes the holes riddling the black leather and the blood slowly seeping from them.  
"Oh. . . Oh Jesus, mister!" Steve rakes the hay back and away and makes short work of the buttons of the big heavy coat. "Mister are you alright?!" Jesus Steve of course he's not, Steve chided himself. Most of the wounds are in the right shoulder, and are clean through from the other side. One though, one is dead center in the man's chest, the blood staining the light blue shirt the man wore beneath the coat. While getting the coat undone was easy it was a real chore to get it off. It was hot and heavy and slick with blood. The strange Soldier cries out sharply when Steve wrestles his arm free. 

The man is pale from blood loss, sweating profusely and slowly starts to shiver as his skin is bared. Steve coos and hushes as he works and is probably more gentle than he needed to be with the remainder of the man's left arm. He's suddenly really grateful that his ma took up doctoring. Suddenly grateful that he was the only spare pair of hands she had for help. He could do this, if the blood loss wasn't already fatal.  
"You hold on now, mister, I just gotta run to the house quicker'n a jackrabbit okay? Just hang on." 

Steve's lungs burn as he bursts through the front door. 

Sarah Rogers is sitting up in her sick bed by the stove. "What on Earth?!" She weakly exclaims as Steve bursts through the door. 

He takes the empty kettle and fills it from the pump on the sink and puts it on the stove for a quick boil, taking out all the eye rings so it got full flame.  
"R-remember when I complained 'bout helping you with your doctoring?" Steve rasps as he scalds his mouth with coffee-- the only thing that really helps his breathing is gulping down coffee as hot as he can stand. 

Sarah nods.  
"Well if you can come up with a way to go back in time you should beat me for complainin'." 

Now Sarah smiles and laughs weakly. "You'll do fine." She promises in her fading Irish lilt. 

Steve's grateful for the vote of confidence. He catches his breath and gathers everything up that he thinks he'll need, running around the house like a jumpy prairie hen. Scissors, bandages, needle and catgut thread, long tweezers, pliers and some of the herbal balms and salves Sarah made or traded the Indians for. He takes a handful of bullets and the bottle of whiskey. All this he wraps up in several of the Indian blankets. 

When the kettle is screaming he takes both it and the blankets and runs back to the barn with a kerosene lantern's handle between his teeth.

He's almost surprised the man is still breathing. The whispered words have turned to weak whimpers and he's sweating worse. Steve lights the lantern and hangs it on a nail above them. He pours some of the hot water over the tools and over his hands one at a time followed by some of the whiskey. He uses a rag and works more of the hot water over the wounds, so he can see what he's doing through the blood. The man cries out at the touch.  
"Sorry fella, it's gonna get worse from here. We're all alone here, so you holler if you need to, no shame to it."  
He does holler. When Steves hand goes to feel for bullets he arches up, and shouts through his fevered stupor.  
"There ya go pal, it's alright." Steve feels a bullet in only one of the shoulder wounds. He picks up the whiskey bottle and regards it for a moment. He downs a slug of it before pouring it over the wounds. The man screams out again and Steve utters the same soothing words his ma usually used when pain was bad for someone. He uses the tweezers to fish the bullet out, it was whole, no stray fragments. "Alright now friend, don't hate me after all this." Steve said as he used his teeth to open up a bullet then another and another. He poured half a bullet's worth of gunpowder in each of the wounds and struck a match.  
The sound the man made was almost inhuman and ripped right from his soul. It ended with a choked sob. Steve had to use every ounce of strength to hold him down. 

The man shook and was still sweating bullets by the time the powder burned out. The smell was horrible but familiar. That quick flash seemed to have taken forever when it was mere seconds. 

He hated that he'd have to do it to the other side too but, it had to be done. But, not before Steve took care of the most worrisome of the wounds; the one in the center of the man's chest. 

He can tell the bullet shattered and he was gonna have to root around with tools and fingers alike. Fingers first.  
He touches bone and winces. It didn't penetrate the man's breastbone and that was a true blessing. Steve's delicate finger --and for once he's glad they're so long and delicate-- can feel the pieces of lead in amongst the flesh. If Steve dared guess, this one was the first wound and from a distance at that. Thank goodness for that thick coat. 

The cries are weaker as he digs around with the tweezers pulling out enough shards of metal to reassemble the vague shape of a fired bullet. This wound gets stitches and they're neat and tidy. Each knot is identical and evenly spaced.  
He cleans the wounds again before he puts a sickly smelling salve on them and bandages them up. It takes some effort and elbow grease to get the stranger onto his side enough that he can attend to the wounds on the opposite side of the man's shoulder. He screams weakly again when the powder goes off. 

The first bandages get soaked through but when Steve changes them a second time, they stay nice and white. 

He's exhausted from the effort of it all and he's still not done. The man has a fever and he's laying in a filthy barn. 

Steve rakes all the dirty hay far away and pulls some fresh, sweet smelling hay down from the loft. He makes a thick bed of it and piles the handspun blankets on top so none of the strands of hay would stick though and be uncomfortable.  
Before rolling the stranger onto the makeshift bed, Steve strips him all the way down and washes him. His clothes are all bloodied and full of filth from the trail. no good for infection. No, he'd have to wash them before they were returned. 

It might not have been as good as some city doctor's office or hospital but it was better than most out here could have hoped for. 

Steve's not trying to look or anything unnatural or unnecessary, but when he gets the man onto the bed he sits and really looks at him. He's younger than Steve first thought, older than Steve by a handful of years but still young. He's well muscled like a railroad worker but for the one arm. He's an oddity in that he has a tattoo to boot. A fading red star lined in bluish-black caps off his left shoulder. It's bisected by thick scars that radiate up from the uneven stump of his his arm.

Steve unabashedly traces his finger along these scars, they're unlike any he'd ever seen. They look like the flesh split apart, cracked open and healed back. 

The man's face is handsome especially now that he's not grimacing in pain. It's the kind of face Steve wished he had, not the long, skinny face framed in floppy hair and slightly too big ears. Where Steve had a narrow, angular jaw the stranger's was nice and square but not too hard, he had a dimple in his chin, slight, just a divot that, Steve thinks, the tip of some lady's finger would fit perfectly against. The man's hair is obscenely long, past his shoulders like some wild man or Indian.  
Where Steve's nose is long and crooked from a number of breaks over the years, the stranger's is straight and smooth. His eyes are deepset and his mouth turns up all on its own in a most mischievous way.  
He looks _rogueish_ Steve surmises.  
He finds himself wondering what the guys voice really sounds like, seeing as he's only heard him mumble and whimper and scream. 

Steve stood and stretched his back. He winced at the pain that had finally settled in now that the adrenaline was gone.  
He still had work to do and a horse to move. He'd come back later with something for that fever and water. 

**July 7th, 1866**  
_________________________________________

Steve watches the buzzards and crows pecking at the horse carcass high on the hill above the house. Though it's raining now, the birds still circle and peck. From the porch he watches it all, the rain, the birds, the lightning. 

When he was a boy he used to flinch, jump out of his skin at the sound of thunder. Now though, now he lets it resonate in his birdlike chest and feels the comfort that there's something always greater than him--- or anyone. Nature was the force that kept or killed all life on the earth. Steve was thankful for the time being, to be kept. 

He glances to the barn. He'd checked for leaks that morning and found none. He was fascinated with The Soldier. That's what Steve started calling him The Soldier. It was better than "the man" or "the stranger". It took everything out of him to not be lingering over his patient night and day. 

Sarah had instructed Steve on what to give him for the fever. It was working but slowly and The Soldier was still out cold. It had been two days.  
The wounds looked good, clean and infection free so far. 

Steve tossed the dregs of his coffee off the edge of the porch and put the short, enameled tin cup down on the railing. He took his hat off the peg and put it on his head. The Soldier needed to take some water maybe some broth, he'd made enough for an army when he'd cooked a meal for him and Sarah last night. 

He carried a lightly steaming mug of it into the barn.  
His shock was to be locked in an unfocused blue-gray gaze as soon as he had the door open.  
"You're awake." Steve says when he's able to speak over his heart, which had jumped into his mouth.  
The Soldier doesn't respond other than by closing his eyes again and slumping against the rolled up blanket that served as a pillow.  
Steve's cautious as he sidles over to the bed. He sits down on the stool he usually uses when milking the cow. "How are you feeling? Wait don't talk. Here." He sits the broth aside in favor of unslinging the canteen from around his frail shoulders. "Here, water." 

There's a movement, a subtle twitch in the left stump but then the right arm raises, reaches out for the canteen. Steve hands it over but The Soldier shakes so bad he can't support it's weight.  
"Lemme. . ." Steve takes it back and kneels down on the soft hay beside him. With a gentle hand Steve lifts The Soldier's head and helps him drink.  
Steve's warning of "slowly" goes unheeded as the other man gulps the cool well water down. Steve knows the canteen makes it taste a little metallic but it's clean water and that counts. 

The Soldier is gasping when he surfaces from the drink. "Thank you." He croaks. "Thank you." Again he closes his eyes and lays back. 

His voice is more mellow than Steve imagined, soft almost. Not the gruff growl he'd pictured.  
Steve brushes the hair off The Soldier's face and his wrist is caught. He'd held in a grip that Steve knew would been like iron if the man were at full health.  
"Don't." the soldier breathes, then lowers his hand down to his chest, with Steve's still gripped tight in it. "Please don't."

"I won't hurt you." Steve tries to reassure him. "I won't ever, alright?"  
This seems to relax The Soldier. He breathes easily again and lets Steve's wrist go. "Okay." The Soldier whispers and then he's asleep again. 

Steve's sorry he couldn't get The Soldier's name. But from the looks of things, there'd be time for that. In the meantime something odd starts tugging at Steve's heart and it isn't just the inkling that he's seen that face before.

 **July 12th, 1866**  
___________________________________

It's some kind of lingering, slow sickness that has ahold of Sarah Rogers.  
It certainly wasn't age that had her in it's grip. No, time was terrified of women like Sarah Rogers. Time didn't come for women cut of her cloth. No, they had to be _taken_ kicking and screaming from the mortal realm. Death himself had to send his chariots and bargain and break natural law to get women like Sarah Rogers.  
At multiple stages during his life, Steven G Rogers wondered if maybe God was a woman after all. It made sense if it were true but it felt a little like blasphemy so he never spoke it. But he saw God in his mother's work, saw Creation when she pulled screaming life from between a woman's legs. 

Steve had never been afraid of dying. He'd been prepared to do it since he gasped his first breath--- but he was afraid of taking a step into a world without his mother. He was afraid of waking up to a world she didn't constantly try to repair.

He was steeling himself, had been for months now, for the day it happens. Steeling himself, he realizes, to step up and take her place. Even if he ain't ready, even if he ain't ever gonna be ready.  
This young man, still mostly boy, who was born for dying was preparing to take on the world he might be only passing through for a minute.

It had been seven days, a whole week and the horse carcass was picked nearly clean. Coyotes and flies and crows and buzzards. Nature, reclaiming what she was owed.

The Soldier still sleeps most of the time. When he's awake he's wary, only passing tense "thank yous" and the occasional "yes" or "no". 

He doesn't answer questions he doesn't pose any. Though Steve supplied him with his name. Steve still calls him The Soldier, even to his face.  
Steve thinks he might have it worked out where he's seen the face before but he doesn't press anything. Sometimes men needed to forget-- but if it were true it made little sense. It made little sense for a war hero to be out in his barn looking like he'd been dragged through hell and shot besides. But then again the territories were still pretty lawless. 

Today was going to be different. Today Steve was going to _try_. He was going to try to make a connection with The Soldier, draw him out, entertain him at least.

If there was one luxury the Rogers household had it was books. Real books, not just school readers, or the Bible which everyone had. They had books of poetry and love stories and terrifying tales of monsters and the men they make.  
Steve takes down a book of poetry this time and tucks it under his arm. 

This time when Steve sits down, The Soldier eyes him curiously. He's come to expect Steve's company, usually it's silent and with a purpose. Food, drink, changing the bandages. Now the kid is carrying a book and the look The Soldier gives him is not lost on Steve. "Figured you'd like something to cut the monotony." He offers the book to The Soldier but The Soldier shakes his head.  
"Can't read." He states flatly. 

Steve flushes in embarrassment.  
"Oh, I. . . I didn't mean nothin' I. . ." 

The Soldier smiles "read me a pretty story, schoolboy." He says cutting his apologies off. 

Steve feels his cheeks heat up, he ducks his head and opens the book.

The Soldier props up on his elbow and listens to Steve read.  
Steve's voice isn't halting, he doesn't have to stop and sound anything out.  
It impresses The Soldier but he doesn't say anything. 

Steve reads steadily and the soldier lets his mind paint pictures. 

Steve reads Byron to him, the sad ones, the ones that make Steve really _feel_ something;  
_"My heart is sad, my hopes are gone, My blood runs coldly through my breast; And when I perish, thou alone Wilt sigh above my place of rest."_

He reads Poe to him, the terrifying one about The Raven. They're both picturing the grim reaper perched on the pallid bust of Pallas, not just a mere bird, they're picturing a spiral into madness. They both shed a tear for Annabelle Lee. And they both picture a grand, sad adventure into death and beyond when Steve reads Eldorado.  
The unending quest. 

He finishes though with Keats: 

_Bright Star_

_Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art — Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors — No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft swell and fall, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever — or else swoon to death._

They're both blushing at the image, both young men wistful with thought of a love everlasting. 

It's been hours and Steve is flushed with emotion by the time he finishes reading. Then tops of his cheeks and the tips of his ears are scarlet. It's almost like he wasn't there at are all. He's moved from the stool and is sitting on the pile of hay and blankets directly with the Soldier. The stump of the man's left arm is over his right shoulder and his dimpled chin is on Steve's left shoulder, looking down uncomprehending at the pages.

The Soldier saying: "I didn't know somebody could make words that pretty." Right against Steve's neck, brings Steve back to himself. He hadn't realized he'd moved so much, invaded The Soldier's space.  
Something knots in Steve's gut, deep down in his soul. It's the twisting of a knife that's been there waiting for ages, waiting for the right hand to turn it. Desire. Desire leaps in Steve Rogers' gut. 

That's what it's been this whole time, each time he looked at the man he was tending to. He's known for a long time now that there was no girl to suit him. He didn't want curls and flowers and petticoats and lace drawers. He wanted rougher hands, stubble against his cheek. Not that he ever fully articulated that to himself. Not that he didn't only think it in wordless flashes of images.

He looks at The Soldier and the knife of his guilt and want twists in his gut. 

He leaps away from The Soldier, away from his unnatural wants.  
The Soldier closes his eyes and a little smile plays at the corner of his mouth. It's a look that says _I'm used to folk jumping from my path, out of my touch._  
And Steve feels guilty.  
"I didn't mean to crowd up on you, Soldier." He tries to smooth out the situation. 

"Hmm. 'f I didn't want you near I would have said something." The Soldier's voice is calm and even, nonchalant perhaps. Steve likes it, likes hearing it, this is the most he's ever heard the other man speak. "Come on back and show me them pictures again, the ones of the stars and the sea."  
And Steve wants to, Lord, Steve wants to but he shakes his head. "I need to tend to ma. Her supper. . . I will come back to change your bandages before I bed down."  
Steve leaves the book within arms reach of The Soldier. 

Sarah is napping when Steve sets to cooking. He greases the skillet and makes a cake of corn bread. He peels potatoes and decides he wants to serve meat that night. It's cured pork from the previous fall and he likes it paired with hot buttered potatoes. Yes, meat was in order. He had two patients who needed their strength after all.  
Steve cooks just fine when it comes to simple things. Plain nourishment. Cornbread, potatoes in a few ways, meat and beans and corn. He could manage on that for the rest of his life if he had to. Not like his ma hadn't tried teaching him. He just burnt anything more complex than that. 

Sarah had said it was just that his soul just wanted food from the trail he was conceived and born on. It always made him laugh to think he had a trailhand's soul crammed down into his weak, useless body. 

Sarah is getting weaker, she doesn't eat more than half of anything. Even though Steve begs her to try. 

When Steve goes back into the barn with a tin plate and a cup of coffee, he's wearing a pinched look. 

The Soldier notices. He's got the book open on his lap, looking at the pictures and when Steve comes in he puts his finger in to hold his place.  
"Hey schoolboy." He actually greets Steve.

Steve gives him a little smile. "I brought food, think you're strong enough to get off the broth."  
Someone could have opened up the pearly gates and said admission was free and Steve didn't think The Soldier's face could have looked happier.

And there it is again; that wanting: The knife twists again.

"It's just potatoes and a little pork." Steve says bashfully as he hands the plate over.  
The Soldier eyes it like it's gold.  
Steve's shocked when he says a quick and unchristian like grace over his meal.  
"Lord, I thank ya, but if it tastes like shit I'm spitting it out." He crossed himself, backward, Steve notes."and if it poisons me to death, I'll haunt the cook."  
He winks at Steve and eats like he's never tasted a plain old potato in his life.  
Apparently it doesn't taste like shit because he practically licks the plate.  
Steve didn't mean to watch with such rapt attention.  
"Thank you, Steve." He says as he passes the plate back. So he was listening when Steve told him his name. He remembered it to boot. 

Using the name scrubs that pinched look away and that satisfies The Soldier. 

"So, you said your ma's sick. What's wrong with her?" The soldier asks picking the book back up, looking at the pictures once more. 

"She says there's something consuming her insides. Something making her waste away."  
Steve sits down close to him and reads a little to himself as The Soldier looks at the illustrations.  
"I'm sorry. I'd kill over dead if my ma took sick." The Soldier lingers a long time on a drawing of the night sky. Steve doesn't tell him he's the one who added it in on a blank dividing page. There's reverence in his eyes.

After a while, The soldier puts the book back down.  
"So, schoolboy. You wanna change these bandages?"  
Steve ducks his head and nods, getting to work. The wounds look good, healing perfectly. He puts more credit to his ma's salves and potions than his own skill. Even if he did mix the last batch together himself, her recipe. 

Steve's small, agile fingers poke and prod, making sure none of the wounds are hiding infection. As he works, The Soldier reaches out to move the hair from Steve's forehead, out of his eyes.

The knife twists again.

His fingers shake and he speaks before he can stop himself. "I know who you are." 

The Soldier tenses, there's that odd twitch of his left stump. "Do you, now?" His voice is practised calm but something tells Steve he shouldn't have said anything. 

Men and their secrets were a sacred thing, if a man wanted to hide away under the desert sky, that was his right. If he wanted to camp out in arroyos and gullies and live like a wild coyote, that was his right. If a man wanted to go so long with his name spoken to nobody that he forgot the sound of it, that was his right.

But Steve nods, abandoning the unspoken code of secrets and sacred rights.  
"You're James Barnes. The sharpshooter from the war."

The Soldier barks out a laugh. "Boy you don't get out of this little dirt-ditch often do you?" 

Steve flushes scarlet. "I don't. . . I don't understand." 

"That was three years ago." He tilts Steve's chin up from where it had dropped to his chest.  
"Might as well have been a lifetime. Ain't a soldier no more." 

Steve nods. "War ended." He agrees and The Soldier gets this far away smile on his face and ruffles the hair he just fixed. 

"Yeah." He says then heaves a world weary sigh. "Might as well call me Bucky, everyone else does." 

"Alright, Bucky." Steve tries and the name has a rightness on his tongue. It makes his blush deepen. "But wait. . . Weren't you decorated? Paper said you were going all the way in the army." 

Again there's that far away look. "If you don't think less of me, I got drummed out of the army, almost hanged besides." 

Steve gasps, hands flying to his mouth. "What? Why?" He was harboring a traitor? A deserter? What? 

Bucky shifts a little, making the hay squeak. His hand locks behind Steve's head, on the back of his neck. Suddenly Steve's the recipient of the most featherlight kiss. He's almost unsure of it at all, almost certain he's imagining it, certain Bucky is in his space for some other reason, those shapely, upturning lips _can't_ have touched his.

"You can slaughter three dozen men for the country but . . ." The lips press a little more and now Steve's sure of rhem. "love one wrong and they'll kill you for it." 

Steve cries out, his hands shake, he drops the fresh bandages and the scissors. "Bucky. Why?"  
Steve looks like he's been slapped, looks like he's had the air punched from him. 

"Nobody talks pretty, cares to read pretty things like you did this afternoon. Nobody that ain't got a deeper soul than most men." He laughs a little, still breathing the same air as Steve, his overgrown beard tickling at Steve's clean shaven face. "Now." He's speaking in low tones; kerosene lamp in a midnight parlor, scotch whisky tones. Lovers tones. "Now, if you don't hate me, I'll let you get back to nursemaiding me." 

Steve is stunned for a long time, his hands dumbly hanging in mid air. It's actual minutes before he's picking up the bandages and scissors again.  
He works quickly, but precisely. His staying, did that mean something? Bucky had said "if you don't hate me. . ." God but Steve didn't.  
And damned if Bucky Ba--- 

"Wait! _Bucky Barnes?!_ " Steve accidentally let's the bandage loose and it starts to unravel.  
Bucky nods.  
"Bucky Barnes of The Howling Commandos?!" 

"So they say." Bucky nods, tucking the loose end of the bandage in so it was secure.

Steve had heard stories, stories of the most feared bunch of desperados between here and Canada. They said they ran with Indians and ran liquor and stolen goods. He'd heard they robbed stages and trains and even led a workers uprising or two. 

"Scared? Or feeling rich suddenly?"

"Rich?" Steve questions, snapping out of his thoughts. 

A smile, slow and warm spreads over Bucky's face. "The bounty. You got me dead to rights."

"Well now, Barnes." Steve breathes a sigh. "I know Mrs Sarah Rogers hasn't got the reputation of a man wanted from here to eternity, but we never held much with law around here. Justice, the right thing at all costs, that's us. And sometimes justice ain't what the law dictates, sometimes the laws fallible. And you're wounded. And I would be some perversion of both flesh and spirit if I sent the first fella to ever kiss me to the gallows."  
He nearly chokes on that last part, the subtle shake starting back up in his body.

The smile on Bucky's face widens, making his eyes crinkle at the corners. "I just _knew_ you were my type of people, Stevie. Through and through." 

Steve is pulled into another soft kiss a moment later, at least it started soft. It quickly goes from chaste to something built up from longing. Lips part, soft sounds as well as saliva are exchanged. Steve's kissing an outlaw. Steve's kissing Bucky Barnes of The Howling Commandos. Steve's kissing a _man_. 

The knife cuts loose a tangle of ropes and twine and tiny strings in Steve's gut. His heart is free. It leaps out of his chest like a songbird to take flight. 

**July 16th, 1866**  
__________________________________________

The lack of an alarm, the lack of the bells of heaven itself is astounding enough. The lack of earthquakes and flashing lightning, the lack of anything marking the occasion at all is jarring to Steve. Sarah Rogers goes gently into that good night with not a sound but the last rattle of her breath.  
One minute she is here and the next minute she's gone.  
Time continues on without her. The world continues even if Steve's comes to a screeching halt. And maybe he understands the quiet too because he cannot make a single sound. He cannot rip the scream that's crowding up his throat free. But it's there, clawing up his insides like a feral cat. He is as silent as she is.

His hands shake as he closes her eyes with his skinny fingers.  
The sight of a dead person never grows routine for Steve. They should by all rights look just the same, like they're asleep. But there is a _stillness_ in the flesh of the dead that is profound. They are more still than their surroundings, more still than the ground beneath ones feet. It's an unnatural thing in all that it _is_ nature. They always look ready to make some sudden movement, draw a breath, anything. But they don't, they never do and Sarah Rogers never will again. 

Steve knows he has to dig a grave. 

He knows he has to have the strength to do it. It's for his ma. He can be strong for her and carve out her final resting place from the unforgiving earth. The earth they carved their lives from by sheer will and tenacity, teasing plantlife forth from the New Mexico dirt. 

He marches into the barn, ignoring Bucky who was still studying over the books Steve had brought. The shovel is propped against the back wall of the barn, he snatches it and marches out again, up the little hill to the family plot. 

He has a spot picked out right under the tree within arms reach of his pa's empty grave.  
The first sob comes when the shovel pierces the dirt.  
He practically screams as the tears come. The shovel slams into the dusty ground, upsetting rocks, making little lizards scurry away to find a better spot.  
He puts all his grief into the action, rending the soil like his heart is rent like his life is. 

Thunder rumbles overhead and he curses God for threatening rain on top of it all. 

He's standing in a sizable hole an hour later but nowhere near a proper grave. 

The handle of the old shovel snaps just as the rain starts. 

Now, he's sobbing on his knees and clawing at the moistened earth with his bare hands, scooping out dirt by the handfuls.  
His clothes are plastered to him, his fingernails splinter and crack and his knuckles bleed. He's gasping with how hard he's crying. The storm matches him, seeming to pour rain harder, the harder he cries. 

A hand hooks into his belt and hauls him from the grave.  
He fights, he fights with everything he has, swinging hard.  
Bucky lets him fight, Bucky lets him pummel him with his fists until Steve's exhausted and sobbing, held tight in that one armed embrace.  
"You gotta come away." Bucky pleads with him. "Come away, Steve."  
Steve lets Bucky take him some feet away under a tree with more branches. The storm has eased but the rain still falls at a hard slant, needle-like in it's trajectory.  
Steve finds that big heavy coat draped over him. He huddles beneath it. 

Bucky digs the grave. 

He uses the broken shovel and his one strong arm to dig it. His hair is plastered down with sweat and rain. Steve watches the water run off that red star tattoo.

It's dark when he finishes, and his bandages are stained red. Steve doesn't know if they're in that state from the work or the fight he put up.

He picks Steve up bodily like a sack of potatoes, hoisting him up with his shoulder.  
He's capable with that one arm. Steve should thank him, protest at being lifted like a kid, protest because of Bucky's wounds. But he doesn't. 

Bucky carries Steve into the house--the first time the man ever entered it-- and shields Steve from having to look at Sarah's body, turning just so. He whispers softly the whole time, little soothing words.  
"Shh, shh, I've got you, Stevie."  
He says.  
"We'll get everything done proper. It's okay. It's okay." 

Bucky takes him into the bedroom and lays him down gently. The mattress is lumpy, old and dusty. Steve doesn't let go of the coat when Bucky tries to take the wet thing off him. The leather smells of sweat and old blood and God knows what else.  
"Steve, you'll catch cold. Lemme take care of you."  
He receives a glare from Steve and he doubles down, wrestling the young man from the coat. Steve's soaked and shivering, Bucky is panting with effort.  
"Off with em. Off with all them wet clothes. I gotta go get something, you just sit there." James says as though he isn't in bad shape himself, as though he isn't soaked to the bone and bleeding too. "Better be off when I get back and you better be under them covers, Rogers." 

With that he ducks out of the room, through the Indian blanket hung for a door. Steve hears the front door open and close next.

He's gone a long time and the storm picks back up in his absence, rattling the shutters, shaking the whole world with thunder.  
The hole in Steve's chest is widening, swallowing him up. He sobs bitterly again as he stands and strips down naked as he was born. He slips under the quilt, the shaking doesn't stop and Steve knows it isn't just from cold.

Bucky returns, Steve hears him, the door practically slams open off it's hinges from the wind. He comes back into the room dripping on the rough hewn floor. He has his saddle and saddlebag on his shoulder. 

"Took me a while. Sorry, started hailing." He drops his burden on the end of the bed and grabs the thing Steve thought was a bedroll or tarp rolled up on the back of the saddle, unbuckling it.  
He sits on the edge of the bed and takes the oilskin off the bundle.

It turns out to be something Steve's never seen before. He's seen hooks and wooden legs, he's seen fake eyes and false teeth, but never a thing like this.  
"I don't wear it often." Bucky mumbles. "Just when I need two. Coulda used it for the work earlier, but things don't always go to plan do they?"  
It has a lot of straps and a lot of small parts. The arm is metal, lightly tarnished with use but still shiny. There are little joints in the fingers that look like they've been made by elves hands. 

"There's this inventor back east, German. He does all kind of things, some of em not so nice as others. Army commissioned this made for me for excellent service." He scoffs the last bit as he fits it onto his stump and does up all the straps.

One loops around his chest and is met with two straps for either shoulder.  
Steve understands the twitching he's seen before now. The arm moves when Bucky wants it to, the fingers feebly flex once then stronger the next time and Bucky makes a fist with it.  
"Accordin' to the good Doc, muscles in your arms run all the way. When you move your fingers, the muscles in your whole arm is helpin' to do it." He slowly curls the fingers one by one. 

"It scare you?" He asks when he notices Steve's staring with bugged out eyes. At least he's distracted, not focused on the corpse in the next room over.

"No it's amazing." Steve insists.

"Huh." Is all Bucky says in reply. He's on his feet a moment later, going through his saddlebags. He pulls on a soft looking flannel shirt, a faded blue that nearly matches his eyes. He leaves it unbuttoned. 

"Y'all got a washtub don't ya?"  
He doesn't wait for Steve to answer, he's rummaging around everywhere, familiarizing himself with it all. He finds the washtub in the other room. It's an old enameled thing with rust around the bottom. It is big though, almost as big as the wooden bathtubs Bucky has seen before. He had to hand it to whoever, disguising it as a decoration table was clever, kept things looking neat and tidy. 

He stokes the stove and puts every pot he can find to boiling on it.  
He has to have a solemn talk with Steve and he knows it won't be easy on the young man. He uses the time to think about what words to use, how to be gentle.  
Bucky Barnes doesn't have a reputation of being a gentle man-- but most people who make assumptions are strangers. 

He puts the washtub in the bedroom. Fills it up with hot water and gives Steve the cake of soap he finds on the kitchen sink. "Come on. Wash that chill outta you." 

Steve hesitates eyeing James who is covered in streaks of mud and a thin layer of rain and sweat.  
"Go on, I'll take seconds.  
He turns his back when Steve prises himself out of bed to slide into the tub. 

Steve makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan when he eases his skinny self down into the steaming water.  
Tension floods out of him like someone unstoppered a cork. 

Bucky lets him have his moment, he lets him relax his poor bones. 

Steve can feel now just what torture he put his body through. His fingers are all chewed up, the skin scraped off the fingertips and every knuckle. His nails are all broken off to the quick. He'd feel a little ashamed if he had the energy to be. For now he just sits in the water, slowly letting himself unravel. 

"Steve?" Bucky's voice pulls him from his thoughts, almost startling him. "We need to go over a few things."  
He's so gentle and the tone he uses is so calm.  
"Yeah, Buck?" 

Bucky smiles at the further shortening of his nickname-- a habit Steve had gotten into during their talks into the night. 

"Will you let me fix her right? Lemme wash and dress her, how you want me to? Fix her hair and all?" He has his warm right hand on Steve's shoulder, the thumb kneading softly into the meat of him. "I wanna be respectful. I wanna do it for you, Stevie." 

A ball of ice is in Steve's gut but he manages nodding. He wouldn't be able to do that and there were no neighbors, no womenfolk for fifty miles. He didn't want to do this, he didn't want to think about it but time was wasting. A corpse wouldn't keep forever.  
"She wanted buried in her wedding dress. It's in the hope chest under the win-window." He tries holding his voice steady, does good til the end when he sobs out sharply. Bucky catches his hand as it goes to cover his mouth. 

"I've seen more men cry for less than their ma passin' Rogers. Don't deny yourself feeling it." He seems to realize that he's got Steve's hand in his metal one and drops it quickly.  
Steve nods, and resumes scrubbing himself with the herb soap his ma had made, the last bit of the last batch she'll ever make. 

Bucky takes his turn in the tub, the water has gone tepid but it's the first real bath he's had since God knows when.  
The storm rages on outside and he knows he'll have more work to do on that grave when it passes.  
When he's had his fill of scrubbing and soaking, he washes his long hair, taking time with it. 

Steve isn't ashamed of watching him from the nest of covers he's been piled in.  
Steve thinks the knot Bucky draws his long hair back into is terribly handsome on him.  
When Bucky finishes bathing he stands and uses the same old rough towel Steve had. He goes into his saddlebags again and pulls on some clothes, a pair of dungarees and one of those big, loose shirts Steve has seen Mexican travellers wear. It makes Steve wonder about all the places Bucky may have been, where in the wide world he'd explored, ridden and robbed. 

"Don't. . ." Steve starts when he pulls his boots on and and heads for the door. "Don't leave. Don't go back to the barn. Please."

Bucky gives him a smile that's about half sad, he stops to pull a little linen pouch out of his bags. "Just gonna see to your, ma, Schoolboy. Figured I should at least be respectful enough to pull my boots on." 

Steve nods and Bucky leaves the bedroom, taking the bar of soap with him.

Bucky rakes the coals out of the stove to stop the heat. No use in warming a dead woman, all it'd do is hasten the inevitable. And that was an unpleasant thought. 

He opens the windows, letting the storm-chilled air in. He stands then at her beside. Steve had told him many many amazing tales of this lone woman's courage. Steve was of a mind that people would just do the things she did out of their own moral compass. But she was unique and Bucky knew that--- he told the young man that.  
Sarah's eyes are partly open so Bucky closes them, knowing for a moment they're the same color as Steve's.  
He pulls up a stool and sits at the bedside.  
He starts by stripping the covers off and then gentling her out of the old, worn night dress. There's no escaping the visceral realities of death, but he'll clean her up, clean her up for Steve. 

The soapy rag passes over her body and Bucky speaks softly to her. "Know we never spoke ma'am. And I'm sorely sorry about that." He said as he lifted her frail legs and washed them, he understood now about the wasting away Steve spoke of.  
"I just want you to know, if your soul is lingering around anywheres in earshot, I'm gonna take care of your boy." He's able to lift her entirely up with a startling ease. She feels like weighs less than his saddle. Perhaps, Bucky thinks, the weight of a soul is a heavy thing and now Sarah's has flown.

He strips the bed down and puts her back as she was. Her hair is in a loose bun and he combs it out. It's long and soft and it makes Bucky sad in a way he can't articulate. Maybe he thinks of his own ma, out east, raising his sister alone. What a good for nothing son she had.  
"Mrs Rogers, I know you don't know me really, and maybe Steve talked to you about me. . . I'm a bad man. I might lead your boy to hell. But he'll be took care of, like I said, to my last breath."  
He plaits her hair and winds it around her head, the way he'd seen some brides do. Though there were no spring daisies woven in, no blue ribbons.  
Before he goes in search of the dress he undoes the string on the little linen pouch. He rolls a cigarette and smokes it. While he smokes he speaks once again to her ghost.  
"I am no more the killer than this cruel society of fallible mortal men has made me, Mrs Rogers. Your boy read me some old dusty thing the other night and I felt like it fit with me. What in Hell was it? _wether tis nobler in the mind to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune_? I think that's how it went. Some men aren't born to this world with the luxury of choice. But I'll do right by him." He tosses the cigarette into the porcelain sink and gets up to go find the dress.

The wedding dress is in the bottom of the chest. It's a simple thing, long and pretty in all its simplicity. The fabric had the tiniest flowers on it Bucky had ever seen, though it was discolored with age, the white gone a little yellow. He can imagine Sarah was a vision in this, out on the prairie saying her vows to a man with Steve's nose and voice just as sure.

He slips her into it and crosses her hands in the usual style over her heart. He gives her one last look, Steve looks a lot like her, except the nose, hers is a perfect button nose. He pulls a clean white sheet up over her and gently wraps her in it. He doesn't really remember the words to proper prayers but he says some nice words about spirits and souls. He sheds a tear for Sarah Rogers.

Bucky expects Steve to be asleep by the time he's through, lulled to slumber by the sound of the rain on the tin roof.  
He is not.

"Hey Soldier." Steve says when the blanket-door is opened.

"Heya, Schoolboy." Bucky gently balances a cup of coffee in his metal grip and a piece of cornbread is in the other. "Hungry? I was just gonna have this. But if you're awake, I can make us a more fitting meal." 

Steve shakes his head. "I don't feel much like food. But if I must choke something down I suppose nothing would suit me better than some of that cornbread and perhaps a cup of milk." Steve knows that it is a childish meal request but the thought puts in him a sense of comfort. 

"Where might an old outlaw find such like as milk around here?" Bucky leans against the door frame with a grin on his face. 

Steve blushes. "Pull the twine that leads into the hole under the sink." 

Bucky ducks out again and this time when he returns it is with a half gallon Mason jar full of creamy milk, cooled by the water of the well beneath the house. 

"You know, most folk keep their moonshine in jars in their well. The Rogers Household prefers it's milk I see." Bucky's words actually draw the ghost of a smile to Steve's lips.  
There is a little wooden table beside the bed and Bucky sits the coffee, jar and two pieces of cornbread onto it. "You'll want a spoon." He says and leaves to get one and another, empty mug besides. 

The tips of Steve's ears grow warm when Bucky crumbles the bread into the empty mug then pours the sweet milk over it. How was he so sure Steve had wanted it that way? If course he _did_ but the point was the assumption. Did Bucky think Steve so juvenile? This was after all what most children are brought up on. But then Bucky is also breaking his piece into the mug and they're sharing a spoon. 

"I reckon I'll bed down along under the window." Bucky says after they've finished off the milk and cornbread and the cup of coffee. "If you don't mind." He adds, licking the spoon and putting it into the mug. 

"You. . . You could sleep in the bed." Steve croaks. "There's room and I'm not big." 

Bucky eyes him curiously then nods. "Scoot over then." He says as he gets back out of the clothes it felt like he just put on. He folds them neatly and moves his saddle to the floor. The arm comes off and is wrapped back in the oilskin. 

"Ain't got a pair of long johns that'd fit me have you?"  
Steve looks at him, as if he's sizing him up, as if they both don't know that there's not a stitch of clothing in the house that'd fit his big frame.  
It was, however only polite of Bucky to ask the question before crawling naked into bed with a fella. 

"Don't think I do, Soldier." Steve pats the bed and Bucky joins him under the quilts. 

It's been a long time since Bucky laid his bones on a real bed, since before the war. He hooks the remains of his left arm around Steve's narrow shoulders.  
"Tell me a pretty story, Stevie." He says, settling back and closing his eyes. 

"I. . . I don't much feel like pretty stories, Buck." There's a brokenness in Steve's voice, understandable but it tugs at Bucky's heart. "Why don't you finally tell me what led you to my barn, Barnes?"  
They'd told one another just about everything but there were still some mysteries about Bucky that the man had yet to reveal. The circumstance of him being at the farm being a main one. That and the way he lost his arm.

Bucky moistens his lips and seems to be steeling himself to speak. "Well," he begins; "I reckon I was bound to have to tell you that sooner or later." 

"Me and one of the Commandos-- Dum Dum Dugan, I spoke about him before-- were riding to trade with some of the Paiutes up in the hills. I suppose it is my own foolish mind that leant me a false sense of ease. It hasn't been so long since the war ended and some of the men are still fighting it. Unwilling to let it go. There were some proud sons of the Confederacy attempting a trade with the Paiute as well. And, well, my pretty Sargeant's hat and my wanted poster are a hell of a combination indeed." He shifted as Steve settled closer in, letting the young man nestle into the space between his stump and his chest.  
"I am not a fella to ever start an unnecessary fight. Don't let my reputation fool you. But the rebs were a different story. Horse killers the lot of them, down to the last man. I had had old Starlight for an age and they shot him from under me. The horse I rode in on, the one, rotting in the sun on your hill was one of theirs. I can only hope Dugan made it back to our encampment in one piece." 

"Do you miss your men, Bucky?" Steve asks, lips directly against one of the strange scars that creep onto Bucky's chest from his arm. 

Bucky nods. "They are a family to me." 

"Will you miss me when you go back to them?" Steve and Bucky have not kissed since that one night in the barn, when Steve had read poetry to him. But they have talked into the night every night since then. They've shared so much, deep secrets, dreams. The way they knew from an early age the difference in them and other men.  
They kiss now.  
Bucky shifts onto his side and cups Steve's chin in his one hand and leans in.  
Its unhurried and gentle. Steve's hand slides itself into the back of Bucky's hair, loosing the knot the man had tied it into. Other than that he lets Bucky lead. Their mouths slot together like they were made for one another.  
With every fiber of his being, Bucky wants to make this into more than a kiss, but he has respect for the dead. He has respect for the grieving. 

"I ain't planning on leaving you, prairie punk." Bucky says when they finally part, lips red and swollen so prettily. 

"No?" 

"I made a promise." 

Steve kisses him again, softly, reverently. "Even if it is a thing that'll be unspoken but for between us. . . Just us and the feeling deep inside, vast like the stars in heaven above. Would. . . Would you be my fella, James Barnes?" 

Bucky stares at the forward little thing wrapped in his arms. A blush has crept to to his sunkissed cheeks. "I thought you weren't feeling like saying pretty words." He says with a grin. "Yeah I'll be your fella, long as you'll have me. Til the end of the line if that's how you want it." 

Steve lights up with joy in the midst of this bleak time. "Who'd imagine? Bucky Barnes, my fella." 

A smile lights up Bucky's face brighter than any Steve has seen as of yet. "Yep. All yours." The smile fades and an almost hungry look passes briefly over Bucky's face. He rolls so that he's half on top of Steve, his face framed on one side in Bucky's arm.  
"If I were an outlaw with no moral compass and a disregard for sacred nature, I'd turn the tables on my previous remark and insist that you're all mine." 

Steve's breath catches and a fire starts just below his navel, searing all the way down between his legs. "Bucky." He gasps, though he doesn't know what he's gasping for particularly.  
It's hard for Steve to put this pretty face to those wanted posters. It's hard to put the face to the crimes. Some of them are bone chilling. Shooting men down in the streets, hanging a preacher, burning places to the ground.  
But he finds it doesn't make him want Bucky less. And Steve wonders what that means about himself.

Steve is drawn back to the warmth of Bucky's lips. They don't do more than kiss, though they ache for it. 

By the time they're falling asleep, talking softly, sharing hushed laughter and a little drop of optimism for the future--- Steve is sure he never wants to sleep alone ever again. 

**July 13th, 1866**  
________________________________________

The sun broke free of the thick cloud cover, baking the world with proper July weather. 

Bucky had to practically re-dig the grave but wouldn't let Steve help. 

Now they stood, looking down at Sarah Rogers in her shroud, laying small in the gaping maw of the earth. Steve has her wedding ring on his right thumb and his Left hand is in Bucky's right. 

They say a few words, nothing expressly religious because neither of them _are_ expressly religious. 

Steve manages not breaking down, not even when Bucky begins to fill the grave up. 

The house feels empty without Sarah in it. Like some of the life is gone from the place. Even Bucky feels it. 

"I want you to come away with me." Bucky breaks a long silence over a meager lunch of fried salt pork and beans.  
Steve drops his fork in surprise. "Away?"

"Yeah. Away. With me, your fella." Bucky keeps his head ducked low, as though he can't meet Steve's eyes. "I don't wanna be apart from you. I was being true when I said I wasn't gonna leave you." 

Steve looks around the house and all the little treasures hoarded up there, his books, the hope chest, the little porcelain figures that had survived the trek west and before that the journey over the ocean.  
"But, it's my home."

"Keep the deed on you. It'll keep, world isn't going anywhere. This place will remain." Buck insists.  
Steve bodily turns away. 

Bucky slides out if his chair now and kneels down in front of Steve, looking up at his downturned face.  
"You're giving me a whole lotta choice, Barnes." He scoffs. 

"Let me take care of you." He reaches and tilts Steve's face up, cupping his chin in his one strong hand.  
Steve heaves a sigh and closes his eyes. He knows the argument is sound, he cannot manage the land on his own and the very little money Sarah made doctoring was no longer going to be coming in.

"Okay. I don't know why you think I wouldn't go with you. End of the line and all." He laughs and reaches out both hands to fist in Bucky's hair. The bigger man inches forward til Steve's able to lean on and kiss him hard. His lips catch Steve's lower lip and the young man makes a soft, pleased sound.  
Bucky does it again, just a bit harder and he finds Steve moaning into it. Kneeling up, he kisses down Steve's neck, tugging at his threadbare, white button down, easing the buttons open. His hands are everywhere, sliding first, up and down Steve's thighs-- which he is slotted firmly between-- then over his bare, bony chest. 

A sharp moan tears from him as Bucky's hands, one cold, smooth metal and the other hot, rough flesh, touch over his nipples. The small pink things harden under Bucky's touch. 

The metal hand jams up a couple of times when Bucky goes for Steve's belt. Steve's own hands come up to help him, shakily unbuckling the worn old thing. 

Bucky's hands slide into Steve's pants. He's filled with desperation, but not so much as to not be careful of the metal hand pinching anything.  
Steve groans hotly when his hands touch him, he's already hard and leaking at the tip. And Steve might be practically five foot nothing but he's not lacking at all in this department.  
Bucky frees him from the confines of his pants and swallows him down in one quick motion.  
Steve's hand flies to knot in Bucky's hair, a cry of surprise and pleasure pulled loud and clear from his throat.  
"B-bucky" he whines as the other man does his magic. Bucky Bob's his head, letting his hot, wet tongue slide from base to tip. His tongue plays along the leaking slit, then he's impaling his own throat on Steve. He forces himself to hold down there with it all stuffed in his face.  
The sounds Steve's making are just so good. Bucky slides his hand over himself, straining in his pants. He's wearing button flys, and he undoes them while never breaking pace. 

As he sucks Steve off, his hand works over his own cock furiously. He can feel every subtle twitch of Steve's. He can tell Steve won't last long this first time. Bucky is driven over the edge moments after Steve practically screams and cums down his throat.  
While they recover, Bucky clings onto Steve's skinny leg. "I want this inside me, Steve." Bucky rasps, throat raw from their activities-- his hand slides over Steve's cock. "Catch your breath." 

The glory of youth. Steve is ready to go again ten minutes later.  
Bucky leads him into the bedroom, grabbing the pot of grease from beside the stove. They can barely keep their hands off one another long enough to actually make it to bed. They make it there, naked and gasping for it.  
Bucky throws himself down and dips his flesh fingers into the pot. "Watch me, so you'll learn." He groans and parts his legs, hiking his knees up.  
Steve watches as Bucky's pretty pink hole is revealed. "You gotta go. . H-hah gently." Bucky moans out as his fingers, slick with grease circle it.  
Bucky is well kempt from head to toe but it always shocks Steve to see he's shaven below the belt. Well, in the handful of times Steve had actually _seen_ Buck naked.  
The bigger man's cock twitches when he sinks a finger into himself. Slowly, he works himself open for Steve. If Steve hadn't have already been hard he'd be by the time Bucky's up to three fingers and whining.  
"S-slick your piece up, Rogers."he keens and Steve reaches for the pot. 

The feeling of the grease is strange but oh so good. Steve had only ever used spit and his bare hand before.  
"Ease it in, schoolboy." Bucky shifts for an easier angle, his fingers slide free and Steve watches that ring of pink muscle twitch for their absence. Steve could scarce believe he was about to do this. About to do this with Bucky. 

"You know how it works yeah?" Bucky thinks to ask.

Steve lets out a breathless laugh, easing all the tension out of his body. "Yeah, I know." He kisses Bucky as he slides between his open legs.  
He lines himself up and slowly pushes in. Bucky makes the sweetest sounds. Even with all the prep it's a right fit that leaves both them gasping as the head of Steve's cock pops in past the rim.  
"F-fuck." Bucky groans out when Steve stills to adjust.  
Steve is panting just as hard as Bucky. "It's so. . . Mhh. It's so hot inside you, Buck." Steve coos. He's unconsciously rocking his hips in little circles and it draws a little moan out of Bucky. 

"Give me more, Stevie. Hard." There's a fire burning hot and needy in Bucky's belly. Steve, bless him, does not disappoint even in his virginal inexperience. He sheathes himself in Bucky's body and Bucky arches like he's been tossed into the flames. "Steve!" He cries the name, worshiping it on his tongue. 

Steve catches on quickly, he learns what feels best for the both of them right away. he learns, with gentle instruction, how to angle his hips to hit that spot insides Bucky that makes the man see stars. 

Bucky cums again, cums first even, untouched on Steve's dick. Steve makes a motion to stop but Bucky shakes his head.  
"No. Keep going, take what you need. How you want it. Hard, fuck me."  
He slams in, Bucky howls and claws at the sheets. "More, Stevie, fill me up!" He moans wanton encouragement while Steve fucks into him chasing his pleasure, his release.  
His hips start to stutter, Bucky knows he's close, he clenches his muscles on him and Steve cries out, spilling deep inside him.

It takes a long time for Steve to come down, for his breath to even out. He shakes beside Bucky when his skinny arms give out, unable to hold him up a second longer. 

Bucky curls around him protectively. "Damn, schoolboy." He chuckles into the skin of his neck. Steve clings to him. 

"I can't believe we just. . ." Steve breathes. "You're. . . It was. . . Thank you." He states, turning a bit to kiss Bucky softly.

They don't clean up immediately, both fucked too boneless to move.  
"We should pack up whatever we'll need on the trail." Steve whispers, half asleep beside Bucky. 

They spend the rest of the evening packing up doctoring supplies and a few precious little things Steve can't bear to leave behind. They take the book with the pictures Steve secretly drew. 

They debate in bed about transportation, Bucky is adamant against a wagon.  
So they settle on taking the old mare and the little Jenny. Steve rode her out enough that he knew she'd be fine on the trip. At least til he got a proper horse. 

They fall asleep in each other's arms, very much in love and looking forward to an adventure in the morning.


End file.
